Mary Christmas

I think we had about as small a group in Bible study tonight as I have ever seen. 6 weeks ago tonight we had about the most I’ve seen at church on a Wednesday evening. It wasn’t for Bible study, although we certainly studied the Bible. It was for the last night of our dear Brother Spruill’s latest revival. But tonight’s study was just as good for me.

I remember pastor Spruill’s message that evening, it was on the Kingdom of God. And tonight’s study was about the King’s mother. Mary.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, as part of Christianity knows her. Holy Mary, Mother of God. The Blessed Virgin Mary. Saint Mary. Joseph’s espoused wife. Maryam in Syric and Aramaic. Miryam in Hebrew. Maron in the Septuagint. Maria in the Vulgate. Possibly Mery or Meryt in Egyptian.

A German, O. Bardenhewer, in a publication dated 1895 (Der Name Maria. Geschichte der Deutung desselben. Freiburg) discussed 70 meanings for the name Mary.

Most a result, I imagine, because Jesus came into the world though a very humble, apparently very young, woman named Mary. And Jesus is the singular name that has most impacted the entire world.

But let me back up to the worship in music part of the service and discuss something that set my mind in motion.

We had a soloist tonight who has sung many times in our church. He was accompanied by his wife on piano and a young woman in our congregation who plays a violin as well as any I’ve heard. And I am a big fan of the violin. I sometimes like fiddle music, but mostly I have two favorite instruments. Violin and piano. And they both move me in ways other instruments can not.

The song they sang for us tonight I don’t remember hearing before. I was told tonight the song, written and recorded by Chris Rice, Untitled Hymn and known also as Come to Jesus, was released in the early 1990s. I somehow missed it then. But I’m a big fan, now! The words, which I won’t take the time to cut and paste into this entry, jerked me fully awake.

But let me print one line from each chorus.

Come to Jesus Sing to Jesus Fall on Jesus Cry to Jesus Dance for Jesus Fly to Jesus
I want to pull out the third chorus and talk about it a bit. Fall on Jesus.

When I thought about fall here are some of the things that processed in my mind faster than I could develop and certainly faster than I could write.

Fall on. Fall out. Fall for. Fall down. Fall back. Fall at. Fall line. Fall fast. Fall into. Fall behind.

And out of those I want to explore only one. Fall back.

Now if you were to conduct a survey as to the meaning of those two words used together you would get a variety of answers. I would hope you would. Fall back as in fall behind. Running but not keeping up. Fall back as in admitting defeat and retreating. Fall back as in fainting and falling backwards.

(Watch closely when people in movies, on TV and on stage faint. They will nearly always fall forward. That is, of course, so they can subtly break their fall. Men who really faint, normally fall backwards. Watch the groom or best man at a wedding. Women who faint, normally fall forward. No, I have no idea why. And it is only my observation, not statistical fact.)

Fall back as in giving up. But the song used only one adverb with fall. On. Fall on. Fall on Jesus.

Here is my thought in very short form. No matter why we find ourselves falling, as soon as we discover we are falling, do what ever it takes to fall on Jesus.

Twist and turn and move and cry for help and whatever it takes, but fall on Jesus. There is no sense in falling deeper than we have to. There is no sense in falling and pleading we can’t get up. There is no sense in falling and lying in the dust. Or rolling into the ditch. Or laying where we land until we die.

So we fall. It is just a fall. We are human. But we don’t have to fall away from Jesus. Because as we live a life dedicated to Christ we will not fall without knowing it. I am sure of that. We might find ourselves in the process of falling, but as soon as recognition comes, fall on Jesus.

So we fall. It is just a fall. We don’t have to say, “Woe is me, I’m down for the count.” Get the *%@@ up and run back to Jesus. If you are having trouble getting up, cry to Jesus. He loves coming back and picking us up. He’ll never come back and say, “Did it again? I’m about to give up on you.” He will come back, and come back, and come back 70 times 7, to pick us up.

But we won’t need picked up near as much if we will learn to fall TO Jesus.

So many more thoughts, but I’ll let the Holy Spirit help you with them. You don’t need me. Think about fall back as in regrouping, recommitting, renewing, and not as retreat. Think about fall down as a process in which you have time to fall TO Jesus.

Don’t think you need to worry about falling? Ah contraire my friend. If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. 1 Corinthians 10:12 NLT.

The other thing that got me excited this evening was this thought put to us by Kerry. Have a Mary Christmas.

Now in light of Luke 1:26-38 which was out text this evening, that is a powerful, and the best, thought I believe I’ve ever heard about Christmas.

Please, please reread Luke 1 and listen to what Mary tells Gabriel at the end of his announcement to her concerning Jesus.

And this is a card I am seriously thinking of developing and sending next year.

You can click to enlarge.

Thank you Pastor for the inspiration.

Twisted Words and Tortured Thoughts

Posting here lately has been on my mind, but not my heart. While I often have thought progressions that formulate in my mind, I sometimes don't get them processed to the point of resolution or closure. So it is difficult to put into words, when the process in my mind is incomplete. Sort of like a joke with no punch line, or a sermon with no conclusion.

But when the heart is behind the mind's thought process both in the inception of the thought and in the resolution of the thought, it is easier to put into words. And for a little while now I have not had my heart in blogging here.

But what I share today isn't really much thought process on my part as much as it is comment on a quote I heard on TV last night. We happened to catch an airing of the show "Search for Noah's Ark" on the National Geographic channel. If you haven't caught any of NG's stories on Biblical themes I recommend them. They seem to be as unbiased in their reporting as any programs I have seen.

During this program one of the commentators was the Reverend Dr. Francis H. Wade, retired rector of St. Albans Episcopal Church. In a video taped commentary on Noah's Ark Dr. Wade said, ""The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say."

I was watching but having just returned from a pretty strenuous day of biking I was not as alert as I could have been. But that quote brought me to full attention immediately. Moments later our daughter Jill called and told me about the quote. She, of course, knows the struggle I have had with bible literalists, and she picked up on the quote as well.

I began to process that quote and thought, "this is a very good statement of literalist and fundamentalist operational agenda." Bear down on the scriptures until what you want or need it to say comes out of the pages. If you want to put your people in bondage to legalism, you can pull about anything you want out of the scriptures somewhere. And it is done in many pulpits around the world.

While I am up here on this soap box, I was reminded by my wife the other evening in the car about something that was said from the pulpit at my brother's funeral last April.

Not having a recording or a script of his message, I will have to quote him as accurately as I can. If I miss quote him and you know more accurately what he actually said I will be pleased to retract my statement and correct it.

The pastor said something close to "You may wonder why God took Brother Phillip home. I know why. Because God could see down the road and knew of the heartache and suffering he was about to go through."

I remember a murmur across the room of agreement. The comment was, of course, aimed at Phillip's wife who had been in the process of divorcing Phillip. A cheap shot to be sure, and a blatant lie besides. God didn't take Phillip home. A propane truck sent him home. A whole lot of difference. God did not plant or plan that propane truck to be suddenly in Phillip's path.

It was a tortured twist of scripture to suggest that God decided it was Phillip's time to die. And the people that continue to blaspheme God with this kind of teaching will answer for their lies.

Time for reading list

I mentioned in a much earlier blog entry that I wondered if killing someone and being sentenced to life in prison would allow me to catch up on my reading. Well, that is, of course, nonsense. There is no way I could intentionally kill someone. But I do have another plan.

If I could, through a battery of tests or otherwise, convince the authorities that I mentally incompetent and should be committed to an institution I might then be able to catch up on my reading. Do they ever discharge you if you show signs later of mental competency? Might be tougher to continue the masquerade than to begin it.

Seriously, though, I really feel that I am cheating myself of so much by not having more time for reading. And my reading interest is ancient scriptural text. The writings that were considered for inclusion in our canon of scripture, whether included or not. Some of those not included tell us much about the peoples of the time in which they were written.

If you closely examine how some of the ancient text became canon it is really nothing short of divine that we have maintained and grown such a devote and large following of believers world wide. I believe it bears testimony to the life changing power that Christ brings to the world. Take away the entire Old Testament, leave out significant parts of the new, leave in the gospels, the actions of the apostles and some of the letters and you still have the central gospel message.

Much of Paul's letters are such a "thorn in the flesh" to many and fodder for the denominational and splinter groups' cannons that some of it could have been left out and we'd have less to fight about. So many forget the differential in time, customs, and societal norms in reading Paul's letters. They pull out his letters to use them as measuring devices to measure the ship of Zion. Sorry, the stadia rods of the first century are Greek to our modern society. No pun intended, of course.

I have discovered an extensive list of titles when researching analytical works concerning ancient texts. Of those, of course, one has to be selective and stay within one's own faith comfort zone. I am a Wesleyan because it fits best and I have strong leanings toward scientific explanations of temporal processes and leave the divine to the nontemporal. I believe that homo sapien sapien is the only dual entity in all of the universe, both divine and temporal. I believe there are beings and creatures that are wholly divine, some that are wholly temporal but only mankind is dual.

I am still reading Kugel's How to Read the Bible as I find the time. It will become a reference for me later I think as I explore other works concerning the ancient text. I expect to discover other viewpoints on many of the issues Kugel raises. And that is what makes all this interesting. Everything I know spiritually is becoming more clearly fluid than solid. And I believe that is closest to truth.

Living on the line

A few weeks ago I slipped over to a sister congregation on a Wednesday evening that we did not have service at my home church. A minister/evangelist was speaking there that I have come to appreciate and love very much. He used in his message an illustration I have seen many times by many speakers, but it is always sobering to me. Several of my previous pastors have done this, including my dear pastor, Kerry. This is just the most recent time.

He stretched a string across the front of the sanctuary. Then with a marker marked a line on the string. While it couldn't be seen by most of the audience because it was so small, the line had an edge on both sides. If the string represented timelessness, or eternity, from never beginning past on the left to never ending future on the right (a very European convention, designating left as beginning and right as future on a time line), the left edge of the mark could represent our birth. And of course the right edge would represent our death.

With this simple illustration we are capable of formulating in a small way how insignificant is our time in this life.

But from that point, it gets deep if you will stay with the thought.

This string was perhaps 20 or 30 feet in length. Actually way too short to represent eternity. And even a line from a fine marker at perhaps 1/32 of an inch way too wide to accurately represent our time in relation to eternity. The ratio there would be something akin to 11,520 to 1. If we take three score years as a nominal life span, that would make eternity only 806,400 years long.

So with the understanding that this illustration ratio already limited by physical space available, we can almost have a brain freeze trying to get our minds around the amazingly short time we live on earth compared to eternity.

Why am I belaboring this point? Because we get so attached to this life and what we obtain and achieve that we often leave little love, time, resources and efforts for things that will last for eternity. And I wonder why? No wonder the Bible says in Mark 8:36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? 37 Or what shall a man give in exchange FOR HIS SOUL?

And to bring this to where my mind has been churning a while. What things are worth getting so worked up over in this life? Is what just happened so important that I am about to pop a cork? Go ballistic? Say something mean or ugly?

How important is it in light of eternity? Trust me. I had to examine myself long before I was able to put it into words here.

End of compartmentalizing

I know you didn’t ask, but I want to answer you anyway. I go to church principally to be challenged in my spiritual walk and my understanding of spiritual things. That pretty much happens every time I go. When you learn to tune your soul’s ear you will discover a lot of challenges even when others wonder what is going on.

That prelude to introduce something I learned this morning. As Ecclesiastics 1:9 says in part … there is no new thing under the sun. What I got isn’t really new. But like many of the vehicles I have owned, new to me, in a new way.

There are in Christendom many phrases that sound good, or illustrate points, or get lodged in our brains as catch phrases, but aren’t in closer examination, good theology.

I refer to my pastor a lot in this blog, I realize, but most of what I hear spoken comes from him. So without meaning any disrespect I’ll refer to him simply as Kerry here in this blog only.

This morning Kerry jump started my thinking. And while being jump started in your thinking in the midst of a message is often counter productive because the brain goes off on its own journey while the speaker continues on theirs. So when it happens to me I try my hardest to not lose my new avenue of thought but also stay engaged in the message. At my age, difficult.

In an age when we live lives that are very compartmentalized, we need to re-examine whether we try to put salvation in compartments.

Kerry made a statement something to the effect that Christ shouldn’t be the center of our lives. Now before you jump headlong off the parapet yelling treason and landing in the moat of murky waters and among, as Dennis so eloquently put it in The Search for the Holy Grail, “strange women lying on their backs in ponds handing out swords ...” think this through with me.

If something is at the center of a body, then by definition it is surrounded by that body. Therefore if we would examine that something, that core, we would necessarily have to go through the insulating and filtering layers of the body.

With me so far?

If I wanted to see a trophy kept in an inner room you have in your house, I must first weave my way through the roads and byways to your neighborhood, through your property, into your house, into where this room is positioned within your house. It is there, after getting through the insular layers that I would gaze upon this trophy.

Whatever paths and obstacles I encountered is likely to influence what I think about your trophy. If it was a difficult and arduous journey, I may be less inclined to believe your trophy was worth the trip.

Therefore, I believe that Christ being in the center of our lives is a fine statement but a little misleading. I believe many people try to live with Christ as their central focus, but never quite get rid of themselves that surround this Christ. I know it is true in my life. I try to have Christ in my center, and all the while I’m nowhere near where He wants me to be in a spiritual geographic sense.

When we speak of God wanting all of us, that pretty much describes it. Forget this idea of God being central. I think God wants to be our all.

OK, now practically, how does that happen? I can not say I have achieved it, but here is what I think it means. When we ask God to take our lives we need to, at that point and as well as we know how, abandon, leave behind, our hopes and dreams and aspirations for our lives, and let God be our lives.

I know it is tough. We have to work to provide. We have to be fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and on and on. We live in a physical world that demands a lot. It can and will demand ALL of our time and ALL of our resources if we let it.

But…and here is the second thought from this morning, and it made me smile with excitement. Isn’t it amazing that God so arranged the solar system and the miniscule part that we know much about so that every day, for as long as we know about, a new dawn has come every day? In fact, a day's beginning is defined by the dawn. A reminder that from our entrance into the kingdom of God and taking on Christ, not at the center of our lives, but in place of our lives, we are constantly renewed with a new dawn.

I may chew on this a while.

Tithing - only the beginning

This might step on some toes, but it is something I really believe in and believe I can qualify my position. Our church has been in a stewardship season the last few weeks. What that means in case you aren't familiar with the term, is a time of examination of how responsible we are with our resources towards the earthly kingdom of God. We can't give God anything. Our money and precious possessions are rubble to Him anyway. But we can give of our resources to God as we give unto others. If we choose to give through a local church body the good can be spread better than if we give individually to individual needs.

I am a strong advocate of being individually responsive and responsible to individual needs, but not at the reduction in our giving to a local fellowship body. I also am a firm believer that a tithe is still insignificant in the community and social status in which most of us live. I understand being coupled with debt and the high cost of life styles. I am living beyond my current means myself. Not because I choose to, but because I was dealt an income blow unwarranted. I was enjoying an income level that allowed me to give more than a tithe, take mission trips and give individually to needs that came to my attention. Now I barely make ends meet.

So I am not unacquainted with stretched budgets. I am hoping for better income levels soon.

I am a believer that a tithe is less than most of us can afford because most of us own things we simply do not need. In fact, I'd say many of us own things that are not only a drain on our income, but are a detriment to our spirituality commitments. And, no, I won't list any. Just in case I'd miss one you might have and you would feel smug thinking you don't.

A tithe to me is a good starting point for those just introduced to salvation and holy living. But we must remember that the tithe was introduced to God's chosen people at a time in history when they were pretty much self sufficient. Self sufficient in the sense that they didn't go to anyone for their needs. They grew everything they ate. They grew what they lived in unless it was a cave and it came with the land they owned. They grew their transportation. They even grew their own labor so having work done for them wasn't paid out of pocket. They didn't pay for education, insurance policies or medical services for the most part (they most likely lived with the ailment or injury and they certainly didn't have their teeth cleaned every 6 months or have preventative colonoscopies done). Their homes didn't require termite inspections, boundary line surveys or occupancy permits when selling or buying. And the list goes on.

So do we tithe on our gross, net, net after bills or what we have left at the end of the month? I say none of the above. I say move past a tithe as soon as you can convince yourself you can. As our pastor often says. "Don't give until it hurts, give until it feels good."

The basic fact and truth that Christians must come to is that when we come to God asking for forgiveness, protection, love and commitment on His part, we must give ourselves totally over to him. What's God's is God's, and what's ours is God's. Simple.

Pastor Kerry put me on the spot this morning. I mean really on the spot. When I think of the thousands of children and adults I have seen with my own eyes who do not have have the necessary provisions for sustaining life on a daily basis and then instantly think of all of the things I have that are not necessary for provision or happiness I cringe.

Lord, forgive my extravagant ways. Guide me as I simplify.

Workable VS Fatal differences & Fatal VS Workable similarities

I have a coworker who is a licensed minister in a different denomination than I am in, or have ever been a part. Yesterday I told him he would probably make a better Nazarene than me. He thought about it a couple of minutes, and said he agreed. He agreed because we do a lot of talking as work together first thing many mornings for a couple of hours.

His denomination believes in the idea of a physical rapture and a time on this earth when Satan will be "bound" for a "season." The Nazarenes do as well. I don't. Many of the Nazarenes as well as the denomination this friend is affiliated with believe in a physical battle commonly referred to as Armageddon. I, again, do not. In fact, I mostly discount all of the prophesies attributed to Daniel and to John the Revelator. I think at best they were feeble human attempts at explaining spiritual realities going on at the time of the writings as well as future events. I actually lean more towards them being fantasy with possible hallucinate influences.

But are they workable or fatal differences? It really depends on parties involved. For me, they are workable. For my deceased parents and deceased and living family, fatal. And there is the sad part.

On the flip side, we can agree on things that are fatal not only to our own spiritual relationship, but to those that look on our spiritual relationship.

As people who don't really know anything about us observe us, what are their impressions? Are they attracted to us and by way of that attracted to the Gospel? Or are they turned away because we maintain that things have to be a certain way and are not willing to consider other possibilities? I am not talking about spiritual relationship ending sin here. I am talking about concepts and ideas that we can not prove or disapprove via the Scriptures. Like a rapture. Like an Armageddon.

If you know for sure what is going to happen at the end of time, please write it up as clearly and succintly as possible, chew it up and swallow it and let nature takes its course. Please do not send it to me. I also do not believe in fortune telling.

Slants of light

Just in from church. Tonight Pastor Kerry told us about a recent trip he made to the west coast, but as he always does, he underpinned the story with scripture and spiritual insight. Two things I had to write down before they slipped into oblivion in the ever hardening folds of my brain.

The first I can't exactly remember how he said it, but here is what I got on paper: "We need not read the scriptures for information. We need to read the scriptures for transformation."

When we read for information we open our minds to discovering something we don't KNOW yet. When we read for transformation we open our lives to discovering something we are NOT yet.

The second nugget I had to note was this: "It is not about who we are but whose we are." I digested that a minute or two and slightly rewrote it as "Who we are is determined by whose we are."

Every day I see and hear about the results of lives lived outside of the presence of God. The world is full of people who's lives are in turmoil and strife because they have been in control of decision making rather than letting God have that station in their lives.

Just thought I'd share. I am deeply indebted to Pastor Kerry because of his willingness to be a transparent conduit of the spirit of God.

I have been thinking along the lines of doctrine lately, but haven't processed it enough to put it on paper. Well, sort of on paper. Thanks for your continued interest.

More reading required

Well, just as I was getting set to examine books available and appropriate to this study of doctrine my wife points out that she had already given me a book on doctrine as a Christmas present which I have not gotten around to reading. Argh. Don't you love it when someone points out something you are looking for is right under your nose?

The book she gifted me with is titled Systematic Theology, subtitled An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, written by Wayne Grudem.

The book looks like it will be a tough read for me. But I have other concerns that I need to address first. Anything I read these days I try to find out all I can about the author’s background and theological position. It isn’t enough any more to for someone to simply state they are a Christian. Unfortunately that title is used by many people who don’t seem to run parallel paths with me.

Grudem is a Calvinist. He is also a Baptist. Now before I hear shrieks and yelps let me explain that the most prominent marker of Calvinism and the various Baptist traditions is their view of eternal security. I just can not buy into eternal security. There are just too many scriptures that make it clear in my understanding that as long as we have life on this side of eternity we live with the possibility of sinning. And I am a firm believer that sin separates us from a sinless God.

I am just as firm in my belief that we don’t have to sin. I believe that we CAN be eternally secure in the peace of not having to sin. But Calvinists believe we can’t break the relationship with God after once coming under grace.

So, I am undecided whether I will even venture into this book. It’s not that I am the least bit intimidated or afraid it will lead me astray. I just don’t see any reason to spend time reading something that I would disagree with and not be able to apply to my life.

If you have any suggestions for good Wesleyan Bible doctrine texts I would be grateful.

Explanation

For those of you who have been along for a while, the readership is growing as I and others invite more to check out the blog. For that reason I have shifted gears ever so slightly to be sure every thing I write is from a positive and encouraging slant. I have no need or use for discouraging or negative verbiage. For a little while I plan to look into this topic of doctrine, and then return to my book. I have found several other books that I feel I need to read. Sometimes I joke at work about committing a crime that would get me a life sentence just so I might catch up a little on my reading.

But, none of it will matter when I pass from time to timelessness. I will have all of the answers I believe.

Blessings.

Doctrines vs Articles of Faith

As I began looking into what doctrine means to people of faith I am finding that there is some confusion between Articles of Faith and doctrine. Every denomination will have Articles of Faith, and every church should have an Articles of Faith statement. I would imagine that almost no person of faith has ever considered creating or adopting an Articles of Faith statement, but I can envision several reasons why it would be a good thing for them to do.

I invite your comments on this because I have not thought completely through this nor have I researched it. It is my conviction at this point in time to believe a statement of Articles of Faith are the first impression you want to present to anyone who is examining or questioning a church or denomination's position on basic religious principles.

I would also hold forth that a personal statement of Articles of Faith would be a great way to establish a basis for further inquiry into what one believes.

Articles of Faith seem to me to be a set of positional statements about the key points of a religion. In other words, how do you, or the church or the denomination, stand on whom and what is your deity? How do you or the members of your church or denomination relate and respond to this deity? What does being in relationship with this deity bring into your life, the lives of those in your church or denomination? And, conversely, what does being out of relationship with this deity take away from your life, etc, etc.

I would point you to the church web site of the church Georgiann and I attend now as an example of Articles of Faith. It can be found at

http://www.abeaconofhope.org/FIRSTCHURCH/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=214.

But that is only the beginning of the instructions, advice and admonition that I believe the church is responsible for in the lives of those who would make that church their own.

Personal Articles of Faith would be the same. A personal AoF would be a sketch or framework of a much deeper set of values and guidelines by which one conducts their life.

What comes underneath as a foundation and support of an AoF statement must be doctrine by which we fine tune our living. We make adjustments to our thought processes, our actions, our responses to situations and our influence as we are impressed to do so by the doctrine that we adopt and process.

Personal Articles of Faith would then be more readily set in stone while doctrine would be fluid and subject to adaptation as the Holy Spirit guided us.

Now, having ventured into all that with the extension into personal doctrine, I need to return to church and or denominational doctrine. That is what was first questioned of me.

How can I worship with a group that does not share my doctrinal values?

I believe that if you are intuitive you will have already guessed the direction this is going for me, if not the exact path.

As I see doctrine, I see it being different for every soul in a right relationship with the Yahweh God. I see Articles of Faith as being very similar among people who call themselves by the first century name Christian.

And doctrine is going to be a deep study as I am beginning to see. I really wonder where it will take me. I am not afraid of what it will reveal; in fact I am excited about what I may discover. But every time I begin to explore deeper into personal relationship with God and responsibility to God I find myself with a lot of growing and stepping forward to do.

My greatest reward in this exploration would be to find you discover how you can grow as well.

Whose doctrine is it?

I see it has been 22 days since I last posted to this blog. No reason or excuse other than just taking a mental break. I haven’t been motivated with anything to share, actually.

But for the last couple of days I have been thinking about something that I want to explore, and so I will invite you along as I set upon the exploration. I am just now beginning to gather my thoughts and resources. I don’t know where it will lead me, so if you have input I’ll be happy to hear it.

I just now turned commenting back on. If I get negative or antagonistic comments I’ll either turn them back off or limit them to certain addresses. If you are far right in your theology please drift off somewhere else. I will not debate or even listen to you. Sorry, but I have that privilege.

I want to explore the idea, form and power of doctrine. This came about as a result of a conversation I had about 6 months ago. I will quote the comment here as best I remember it.

“Why would you go to a church that doesn’t teach a doctrine you agree with?” (Sorry for ending the sentence with a preposition, I quoted the person verbatim.)

I wrote a several page response to the first part of that statement but reduced it to the statement “Why do I go to church?”

I didn’t publish that because I never finished it to my satisfaction. I did come to the basic succinct conclusion, however, that I go to church to be challenged in my walk of faith and in my knowledge of scripture.

But to pick up the second part, and the intent of the original question, I decided to explore this idea and understanding of doctrine. I believe the word is very often misapplied in Christian lingo.

We could spend considerable time on Christian lingo that is often total nonsense to people who were not raised in a Christian environment. I think Christians use way too much lingo and need remember that the specialized words and phrases within the church are not always understood by the people outside the church.

But that aside, and left for another day, I wanted to look into the word DOCTRINE and see how it is used by theologians, biblical scholars and writers, and sacred text researchers.

I found this entry on dictionary.com for starters:
doc-trine  noun
1. a particular principle, position, or policy taught or advocated, as of a religion or government: Catholic doctrines; the Monroe Doctrine.

2. something that is taught; teachings collectively: religious doctrine.

3. a body or system of teachings relating to a particular subject: the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

Next I looked at dictionary.com’s list of synonyms:

article, article of faith, attitude, axiom, basic, belief, canon, concept, convention, conviction, credenda, creed, declaration, dogma, fundamental, gospel, implantation, inculcation, indoctrination, instruction, position, precept, pronouncement, propaganda, proposition, regulation, rule, statement, teaching, tenet, tradition, universal law, unwritten rule.

Looking at Wikipedia for doctrine I found this entry:

Doctrine (Latin: doctrina) is a codification of beliefs or “a body of teachings” or “instructions”, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system. The Greek analogy is the etymology of catechism.

Often doctrine specifically connotes a corpus of religious dogma as it is promulgated by a church, but not necessarily: doctrine is also used to refer to a principle of law, in the common law traditions, established through a history of past decisions, such as the doctrine of self-defense, or the principle of fair use, or the more narrowly applicable first-sale doctrine. In some organisations [sic], doctrine is simply defined as 'that which is taught', in other words the basis for institutional teaching of its personnel about its internal ways of doing business.

The word doctrine is used 51 times in the KJV. 21 of those times it was at the hand of Paul, unless further research determines that Paul may not have had full authorship of 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus and Hebrews.

If you study the Pauline writings at any length you will find that he often seemed to twist the words of Jesus and very egregiously add his own slant to the words of Jesus. Paul puts into rules things that Jesus never spoke of. Paul set forth boundaries and restrictions that would have made Jesus wonder if he, Paul, had left his senses.

I won’t go into the differences in opinions of Paul here, you can explore that yourself, but I will remind you that Paul never met Jesus. Paul never heard Jesus. By his own admission he was an apostle born out of season, i.e. after Jesus had ascended to the Father. He didn’t mean he was physically born after Jesus’ ascension, he meant he came to faith in Jesus after Jesus’ ascension. But scholars are in unison in believing Paul never met or heard Jesus.

So Paul takes some very tough liberties with statements he is hearing third person.

Back to doctrine.

It is my opinion that the word doctrine, in its simplest and base form, is a person’s or an organization’s basic tenets for functioning and conduct.

Taking that one more step in the context of this entry, a church’s doctrine should be nothing more than that taught by Jesus if that church is going to claim to be Christian.

No if you want to claim to be of Paul then your doctrine should follow Paul’s ideas, concepts and boundaries for functioning and conduct.

I believe every person must establish, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, their own functioning and conduct boundaries which will not have conflict with the teachings of Christ, because Christ and the Holy Spirit are two parts of the one Trinity.

It is further my belief that a church that completely echoes your personal doctrine only does so because instead of establishing personal doctrine you have simply adopted the church’s doctrine as your own.

Dangerous.

My opinion.

A meager beginning to a deep topic. I will, as I have the energy and time, explore this further. The comments of those invited to this blog are welcome.

Bruce

Open the blog?

Only one of you has commented much about the blog, so I am thinking that maybe since it is mainly me that will run the risk of creating concern in those who might read the blog, I am ready to run that risk and invite anyone to the blog. I have a few other people that I think might be interested only because they know I am a fringe thinker.

So if none of you that were originally invited have any objections, I am going to open it up. And you can as well. Although who you know that I don't that would be interested is not even fathomable to me.

I have had little time to read lately, but what I have read continues to hold my interest. So far none of it has moved me from my point of faith or changed my beliefs in any way. What is has done, however, is pulled the veil back on some of the issues, circumstances and scenarios in the Old Testament that had me puzzled. What I have read has not so much solved the mysteries as much as it has helped me see that I am not alone in the mystery. And having seen many of the possible solutions to the mysteries proffered by some of the top ancient writing researchers I can rest more comfortably in my opinions and not worry that I have begun to overlook an obvious translation or resolution.

At the same time I find myself becoming a lot more tolerant of other's opinions of the same situations. And I believe that is because I can smugly remind myself those in whom is found the most staunch opinion of how something must be in the scriptures really don't know any more than any of the rest of us. It also humbles me to the point of never thinking that I have things resolved or organized into "the way it was or happened" any more than others.

Here is the scenario. I am in a class and one of the ancient stories, laws, situations, or circumstances comes up and someone takes the floor to inform the rest of us exactly what happened and why the writer wrote what he did. (Bowing to the bias that all of the ancient writings were written by men.) And to myself I say "Yeah? You don't know jack."

So far, that has been the biggest thing I have learned. Concisely, I have learned that we really haven't learned much. And to believe we are right and others are wrong is pretty egotistical.

Later.

Ten Commandments

This will be short and to the point. It is late, and I am tired. But I wanted to read a bit before going to bed.

The "Ten Commandments" are said to be the most famous bit of legislation in the world. They are ten laws or requirements of man by God in order to stay in a good relationship with God. Notice I am using a capital G to indicate the one god as expressed in both Jewish and Christian tradition.

But if you read the Ten Commandments very carefully you will see a change in narration perspective between the first two commandments and the next eight commandments.

The opening of the commandments appears to be God directly addressing the people. Notice the use of first person as the narrator. "I am the LORD your God... ...no other gods before me. I the Lord your God... ...those who reject me... ...love me and keep my commandments."

Those are from the first two commandments. By the third commandment, we have a shift to third person. We go from I and me to His and He representing God.

It would seem that God spoke the first two commandments directly to the Israelites, which caused them great fear and concern, and the rest most likely were delivered to them by Moses.

Either the first two were deemed by God to be so important He wasn't going to risk them being misspoken or misunderstood by having Moses relay them, or He wanted the added emphasis of speaking them Himself to embed them in the minds of the people who heard Him.

Now this brings us to another point that this author does not explore, but is always in the front of my brain. Did God, in fact, ever speak directly to humans, and if He did, does he still do so now?

I have always thought that one could communicated directly with God the Father, but only through the mystery of the mind. It would appear that in this incident the people heard from God not through the workings of their minds, but through actual auditory sounds received by their ears. The scriptures, in fact say, that the sound of God speaking to them was terrifying. They even told Moses that he should be the one to communicate with God because if they listened to God they would die (Exodus 20:19 KJV).

If God did speak to the Israelites, was there a reason why He chose not to at some point? Or does He still?

I wouldn't claim to be worthy of a direct communication with God, but I'd dare say this group of Israelites weren't either.

Am I missing something here? Is there an evolution in the way God communicates with His creation? Or is there an evolution in what we will believe as fact verses fantasy. Are some of the stories within the ancient writings mere collections of even more ancient oral traditions from different traditions?

Were the ancient writings contrived over time to set the stage for explaining the favored positioning of a peoples who would dare to call themselves "God's Chosen?" Will we, or can we, ever know?

Hold on to your socks

In this blog, I may shake you a little bit if you have held Christian or Jewish principles dear. I don't know at this point who all is following, but if it is only the 5 I invited, knowing who you are I need to assure you my faith is still intact. Nothing has moved me. But some very interesting concepts have been presented in this book I am reading.

When bibliologists study the scriptures they bring into the research questions that most would not consider, or most likely, even have come to mind.

Exodus, the second book written supposedly by Moses, is a continuation of the history of this nation of God's chosen people, as well as the beginnings of the laws of God being handed to man. Most famous, and first in line, are the Ten Commandments.

Much has been written about, preached about, debated about and held in contempt of these 10 laws. They were, according to bible tradition and interpretation, laws that God inscribed on stone that was left in the care of Moses while in the wilderness with the Israelites. You know the story.

The first commandment has some bibliologists going in a direction that might might twist your knickers, so hold on.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:3, KJV. Notice the small g in gods. A small and seemingly insignificant thing. But religions seem to be divided on similar small and insignificant things. Also notice the wording of this first and greatest commandment (according to Jesus Himself).

It does NOT say, "Thou shalt have no other gods." But it seems to be implying that if you do have other gods, they will be secondary to me, the principal god. Or, as we now refer to Him, God.

And in fact, if this happens to be true, it fits much better with the beliefs of the day. Peoples of known cultures and religions at that time believed in many gods. And this god, was not outright discounting them, but advising these, His chosen people, that He would be first in their worship and allegiance.

This is known as monolatry. You can look it up. It seems from all of the ancient writings that Moses and those who followed him were not monotheistic, but were instead monolatry. That is, acknowledging many gods, worshipping only one.

This in and of itself is not earth shattering, at least to me. But is when coupled with the knowledge that the god of the bible was of two models. First was a god that was not omnipresent. He had to appear to most of the most important figures in the early Old Testament. In clearer language, He was not always with them, but "came" to them. Later we find god everywhere all the time, omnipresent. We have on face value two different gods. At a known point in the scriptures we have a turning point in who god is. The scriptures even call Him different names.

These two concepts, a god who is not omnipresent, and a people who are not monotheistic, staggers those of us raised in the traditional Christian thought pattern. I believe that these two concepts would not make for easy teaching, and would most likely cause great confusion and maybe much disrespect for the scriptures.

For me, it cements some ideas I have carried for many years. And it actually strengthens my faith and clears my head.

Hope I haven't impacted your thought process negatively.

Presupposition

Some of the key pieces you learn if you study authorship are the elements that a good author must know. First he or she must know their topic. Whether they know it straight on or obliquely will determine the way they approach the topic, of course. They must also know, or make some assumptions about, their intended audience. A language must be selected. A form must be adopted and strictly adhered to. And there are other things that come into play depending on the type of writing.

One element that all authors include in their writing is presupposition. That is a subset of knowing or guessing about their intended audience.

In examining the Bible's old testament for a while now I have reached this conclusion tentatively.

It seems the authors and compilers of the ancient writings leaned towards the belief that those who would read or hear the words would be skeptical at best and seriously distrust the words at the worse.

I find that many of the events, stories, and heroes of the ancient writings are elaborately told as if the author wanted to put everything into the telling to make it more believable. Just as people do today when telling or writing. They embellish, exaggerate or inflate the truth to make it more real and more amazing than it was.

It is almost as if the ancient authors envisioned a very disbelieving readership. And secondary to that, it seems to me that they also anticipated a simple minded and perhaps even gullible audience.

I grew up hearing the phrase "a simple faith." It has been said of my mother that she lived and practiced "a simple faith." I wonder in what context and connotation the word simple was being used? Simple, as in uncomplicated and unencumbered with supporting truths, or simple as in unlearned and unscholarly?

I know from working with special needs people that some who are in our view mentally challenged seem to live in a world that jumps from sublime happiness because they really have fewer cares than most of us carry, and complete frustration because they don't understand that many things in life take the care and planning of logical thinking.

So I wonder if the Bible is best taken without logic? But if it is, you shouldn't think too long on whether it is or not! Don't approach topics that are best understood without logic logically. Is that logical?

Lack of evidence = misrepresentation and mistrial?

In spite of an enormous emphasis placed and significant space given within the Bible concerning the Israelites migration in to Egypt, along with the accompanying life story of Joseph of adopted royal linage, the plagues, expulsion and pursuit into the "wilderness" resulting in the loss of the Pharaoh's very expansive and expensive army; ancient writings experts and archeologist's have found no collaborating evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt or in the "wilderness."

Scientific research and geographical evidence has not found any way to explain the crossing of the Red, or Reed, Sea, nor the loss of an entire army in same.

So. Was it all fabrication? Well, James Kugel seems to believe it might have been "cut from different pieces of fabric" as he calls it. The story may have some elements of truth in isolated and unrelated events in the past of the author(s) life but were somehow pulled together to create a peoples who desperately needed a historical record that was different than it was in reality. All in order to explain why they were "God's chosen."

Modern historians will agree that even short term history, as in that of the United States, has been written from a very white man's point of view. Women, Blacks and Indians, the other major components of this country's history, have been largely ignored, misrepresented or downplayed.

Even with the checks and balances of the 18th and 19th century historians we have a distinctly distorted view of our country's early struggles in emergence. Take those parameters back 3,000 years and imagine the chaos you would have at the hands of an extremely few would could read and write.

Mind boggling.

Dates

Dates have profound effects on us. In many parts of the world, certain dates are thought to hold power to render actions on that date either successful or doomed to failure. In this society in which we live, we too are emotionally tied to certain dates. Our birthday is probably the first date that becomes significant to us. When we enter school and begin to see what historians have decided are important dates we add some of them to our list of significance as well. July 4th is one we observe in this country. Less as we become more integrated. Christmas is one that takes on many different meanings to people, but the date always seems to be held in some kind of sanctity. At least I don't hear of many who celebrate Christmas on a different date.

September 11 has become to this nation a date of significance. Prior to 2001, however, it was already of significance to my sister. It is her birthday. Yesterday was also a significant birthday in her life. My sister, as everyone who has access to this blog knows I think, is Asian. I am so happy my parents brought her into my life. I didn't get to know her until I was grown and had lived away from the family for a number of years. But she and I have always shared some similar values, experiences and great humor. She never fails to make me laugh. And for that I am grateful.

It is right now just moments after midnight on the 12th of September, so her birthday is over. But I received a note from her yesterday, and I want to share two lines she wrote. I have not gotten permission, but I hope she doesn't mind.

She wrote, "It is a reflective day for me. ... And a desire to send out the message to my birth mother that I am "OK" is really important to me.

I believe this is a key desire buried deep within our psyche. I know it was an unfulfilled desire of mine all of the years after I had left home until my mom died. I always was searching for a way to have her understand I was doing OK. Into death she carried the belief that I was wayward and not on the right track.

I hope Amari has the opportunity at some point in her life to return to Ethiopia and find her birth mother and tell her what a brave thing she did by allowing another person, half way around the world, raise her daughter so she would have a chance to become something in life.

There are dates stuck in my head and heart as well. Some of the dates are obscure in my memory as to the calendar date, but the moment in my emotional time line is etched deep in the cell walls of my memory.

Dates are mileposts in our lives that signify important decisions, actions, and events. Some of them are good, some of them not so good. The more good dates we can string together in life the happier our lives.

I wonder what is the MOST significant date in your life to this point? You don't need to write to tell me, but ponder on it. I hope it is a good moment.

Why am I doing this??

As you know, I have been reading a book titled How to Read the Bible, subtitled A Guide to scripture, Then and Now, by James Kugel. Kugel is a very educated Orthodox Jew and his education naturally comes through in this book in his choice of words and in the way he presents material.

If one is not familiar with Bible scholarship, they will find themselves consulting a dictionary frequently to truly understand the text. Not the text he writes about. The text he uses to describe the text he writes about.

I have encountered so many new words and phrases my head swims. And the ideas and methods that Bible scholars use (new to me) sort of jumble together in my mind until he has explained them in enough different ways with enough different illustrations that I begin to sort them out.

All of this learning and learning is of almost no value to me in everyday life. I could never use the words I have learned in any conversation. First of all, I’d probably not use them exactly properly, and second, no one I know would know what I was talking about.

So, I look at myself and wonder why I am so weird. I enjoy this. And I can hardly walk by the book without picking it up and reading a few or lots of pages.

There is a scripture in the Bible that addresses this sort of behavior. I quote the KJV here because it is the most familiar to me, and I quote the entire first 7 verses of 2 Timothy 3, to set the stage:

2 Timothy 3

1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Confession: Having been raised under a hand of guilt instead of grace, I have always had verse 5 ringing in my ears. “Having a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof…”

I realize that a monotheistic religion is senseless if we reject the power of the God we strive to serve. Being a Christian, I of course am monotheistic. And I believe that if I am to be rewarded at the end of this mortal life I must be in relationship with God.

All of that to say I fear being found denying the power of God in my quest for God. It is almost like in my search for meaning I have set myself up for failure because I am reaching beyond the simple belief and believability spirit with which I was raised.

However. That fear is secondary to my quest. So on I plod, trying to find the real writings of the ancients to satisfy myself, that the writings were NOT the hand or voice of God in the literal sense, but simply the impressions of men’s own thought processes as they allowed their inner being to be influenced by a entity that I can only name as the Holy Spirit.

And, I believe I am continuing in the same vein, trying to make sense of a very complex and convoluted set of writings whose origins and authors are not precisely known.

For anyone still checking, Thanks. If you choose to opt out, I wouldn’t blame you. I may have to soon in order to get more sleep!

New word, new concept

Etiology. I had never encountered this word before. But this book I have been absorbed in is mostly about the etiology of the events, issues and characters of the early writings which became a part of our Bible. Etiology, if you do not know, means the cause of something. It is most often used, quite often used, in the medical field to explain the causal effect behind a situation being exhibited in a person. For example, if you were to study why a person has a cold, you most likely would eventually work your way back to the fact that this person came in contact with a cold virus of some kind. The virus would be the principle etiological source of the sickness, the cold.

Biblical scholars have postulated that many of the events and characters in the Bible are simply creations, fabrications if you will, that explain a situation currently observed. For instance, to explain why Israel's neighbors were so hostile and a warring nation the early interpreters of the ancient writings created a story of twins born to Issac and Rebeka, Esau and Jacob. Esau, as you may know, was identified as a man of the woods. He hunted, he was coarse, he was uneducated. Jacob, on the other hand, is said to have dwelt in the tents, had schooling, was gentle. In time, they both became great nations (according to ancient interpretations). The Edomites, Esau's offspring, were not nearly as nice as Jacob's offspring. Also, remember this is all being interpreted by the Israelis, or Jews of the time. Many scholars believe that the nations of the Edomites and Israel were made up of a number of different peoples. But because the Israelites were so intent on being God's chosen nation and peoples, the ancient stories were adapted, manipulated and simply restructured to place them in that category.

Thus, Esau and Jacob were etiological characters used to develop a story and a history that in all probability was fabricated long after they were to have lived.

The book goes on to talk about Adam and Eve and the serpent, Abraham and Issac and the command by God to sacrifice Issac. It talks about Babel and a host of other events and characters that needed to be created in order to explain in acceptable terms the position the Israelites were in at each particular point in time.

It's tough for me to convey it all to you here. You would need to read the book, but I am struggling a lot and I have a pretty good grasp of many of the theology terms and much of the concepts of ancient writings. I'm not saying any of you would have as much difficulty, but if your interest doesn't run in this vein I would imagine you would soon be put off by the language. I have come to the conclusion I have a textbook in my hands, rather than a book written for the average person.

I am fully enveloped in the book. I find it fascinating. But for me it is answering questions I have had since about the 8Th grade. And I am amazed that some of the things I had begun to postulate in my own mind were close to what this writer claims. Thrilling, actually.

Where it will leave me I cannot tell yet. My thoughts on what the old testament means to me has changed dramatically already. Whether it will change my core beliefs, I doubt. But I do expect to be changed. I would be disappointed in the book if it didn't. I really have no time to read books that don't change me at this stage in life. Time is too short. I will die with thousands of books not read as it is.

Auctores

I can almost see one of your faces and see the glint in your eyes as you read through this post.

As I have progressed through this latest book I have had a more sinister thought creep into my brain. Being mostly protective of the scriptures because of my background I shoved it aside for a while, but it persistently nagged at me. I got to bed this morning about 2 or 3 minutes after midnight. Not too bad considering I didn’t leave work until just about 9 pm. Got home and had a snack and watched some medical TV, then went on to bed after my obligatory shower.

But it is 2:30 and I am back up putting down on paper some thoughts I don’t want to risk to more sleep for fear of them fading.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I wondered if the Jewish fathers were reluctant to have their oral tradition penned to paper because of a fear of a dynamic story becoming static words on paper.

I have not found any substantiation for that idea, but have, instead, been stumbling across a number of points made by this author that I want to quote, and see if you don’t see in the passages what began to emerge to me.

I can do this at this time because I don’t work today or tomorrow. Not because I have the holiday off because it is a holiday, it is one of the store’s biggest sales days of the year, but rather because of luck of the schedule rotation.

Let me first put forth 4 assumptions about scriptures that was emerged in the years BCE. I presume you know that BCE is Before the Common Era, or BC, meaning Before Christ, but a more politically correct statement of time when considering those who believe that Christ was not the Messiah.

1. It was assumed that the Bible was a fundamentally cryptic text. In other words, it wasn’t to be believed literally, but was allegorical.

2. It was assumed that the Bible was a book of lessons directed at the readers of that time. It was not fundamentally history, but rather a guide to daily living.

3. It was assumed that the Bible contained no contradictions or mistakes.

4. Lastly, it was believed that every word and phrase was divinely given by God as text to be related by each author.

Now it gets to the point that began to awaken a large dragon in my brain.

I quote, “…the very idea that Scripture has layers and layers of significance entered into the popular imagination. In Medieval Europe, the Bible became a vast, mysterious, and infinitely complicated world. The front and back of this book were held together by hidden correspondences between Old and New; the most fundamental doctrines were nestled inside apparently innocent narratives, indeed inside a single sentences made up of words that seemed to be talking about something else entirely.

To enter the world of scripture’s mysteries was thus a matter for trained professionals; only a priest or a monk schooled in the ways of fourfold interpretation, and especially in the interpretations of his processors, could say for sure what this or that scripture meant. It never occurred to ordinary people to try their hand at interpretation-to begin with they did not own their own Bibles, and they could not read.”

This lead, the author, continues, to an attitude towards scriptures called auctores in Latin. It means both author and authority in English.

The meaning of the Bible was left to the auctores. Their interpretations could never be challenged. Auctoritas was all powerful and unquestioned: the Bible meant what the authorities had always said it meant.

Ding, ding, ding. Wait on the siren. There’s the factory whistle. What do we have in many churches today? A new wave of auctores.

Rather than allowing the masses to interpret what modesty is, we will tell you what modesty is. Instead of you deciding what you will listen to and watch we will tell you what you will listen to and watch.

We have come full circle. We may look like we are living in the 1940s, but we are behaving like we are in the Medieval ages.

I realize this is NOT what I was hoping to find in my research, but it certainly answers many other questions.

The Jewish leadership didn’t want nor would allow private interpretation of the sacred text; and that mindset carried on until it was the persuasive attitude where ever the Bible was used by Medieval times.

Scary what you might discover when you begin to question.

Loosening the strings

I decided this morning (it is 1:15 am here) to loosen things up a bit. You would not have noticed unless you read all the way back to the end of the first post, but I deleted the email address for responses. I also turned commenting off on the blog.

So, if you know of someone you want to invite to read any of this, you can give them the link without me knowing who they are and without them knowing who we are.

I don't care who reads it. Just don't want to hear from disagreeing people. I don't really care what others think of what gets written here. It is an exercise for myself, after all. And I am not inviting comment except from the original ones I invited. I may invite more, but in that case I will give them the email address.

Cool? No one's feelings hurt? Hope not. If you would want to include someone whose comments you would like to hear, you can either ask me if they can have the email address, or give them yours.

I recently was given a book I had not heard of before but has so captivated me I can't even get to bed even though I seriously need to.

It is titled, "How to Read the Bible" by James L. Kugel. Powerful stuff. And it is answering a million plus questions I have had about the ancient biblical text and questions all Christians and Jews should be asking as well.

I'll comment more on it as I get further. Only been reading about an hour and a half so far.

Table Conversation

Georgiann and I ate out tonight. Something we are doing less of now that the budget is tightening. Mostly because of gasoline prices. Jill and Mari, Todd and Diana came along. I mentioned the fact that I was up for about an hour or so around 3 am this morning researching some things on the Internet and Todd was curious.

In my reading I have been made aware that the origins of the Bible were for many years only oral tradition handed down from generation to generation. I have not found out in actual fact but I get the feeling that the Jewish leadership during the time before Christ came on the scene did not want the oral tradition written down. It seems they were afraid that the dynamic story would become static with the commitment to words.

I think I wrote about that before and may have explained some of it.

In addition, I did not know until last night that the Bible was first written in Hebrew in 3 separate books. The "Torah" whose authorship is attributed to Moses, "Nevi'im" also known as the "Prophets," major and minor. And "Ketuvim" also known as the "Writings" consisting of what is known to us now as the Psalm, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Ruth and Lamentations."

At some point, believed to be between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC, those three Hebrew books were combined and translated into Greek and called the "Septuagint." This translation was done by 72 Jewish Hebrew scholars in Alexanderia, Egypt.

Todd, I was wrong about BCE being different than BC. Seems to be the same. I'll post you that once I get a few minutes to research it.

The "Septuagint" was and is often referred to simply as LXX which is the Roman Numerals for 70. 70 being a round number representative of the 72 scholars.

My quest in all of this is to find someone who may have insight into the mindset of the Jewish leadership in their resistance of taking the dynamic oral history and entombing it for all time in static written form.

I understand in part how a story has emotion and power in an oral tradition that it might lose when written down and especially when translated.

But to me that is where the Holy Spirit must be at His post of duty to provide the real translation and application to our understanding.

More as time permits. Does anyone really know what time it is? Who put that into a hit song in 1971?

Cerebral Language

One of you commented about getting a dictionary to follow along. Well, I will endeavor to use the precisely right verbiage in each entry. That's who I am. When I am writing I have the luxury of structuring my comments and using the right word because I can research it while I write.

Now if that seems artificial to you, I offer my apologies. But writing should always entail one's greatest efforts to be perfect. We don't typically have that opportunity when speaking. Unless you have spent a life time studying the language.

I had an English professor in college that was perfectly precise in her conversation and lecturing. Her name was Kathleen Rousseau. She dressed like a 20th century carryover from the Victorian age of the century before. Always in a long dress normally with a shawl or jacket and her ever present umbrella. I developed a special relationship with Professor Rousseau in spite of some 45 or 50 years difference in our age, and worlds of difference in education and knowledge of the language. She always encouraged us to be precise in order to be understood. I took three classes with her, one of which was Etymology, the study of words. I believe it was the class I loved the most in college.

But, if it gets too much for you, I'll try to use more explanations than precision in the way I word things. Let me know.

I sat in the break room at work today trying to eat my lunch and was quite annoyed at three people who were having a riotous time talking about their small children, ages between almost 3 and about 7, who used vulgar language in their every day conversation. They thought it was extremely funny, and I was horrified. I can not imagine teaching or encouraging a child to use four letter words. I see no room for them in any conversation or writing. Bad scene.

My reading lately has consisted of three books. One book I interrupted the other two so I could read it straight though. The title is "The Last Oracle" and is written by James Rollins, author of "Map of Bones." It is a book along the same lines as the "Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown, another book I very much enjoyed. One of the books I have also finished, "Are Men Born Sinners, The Myth of Original Sin" by Alfred T. Overstreet. An compelling read and seems to be on solid ground. The third book which I am having to read carefully because it references events and people I am unfamiliar with is "Whose Bible Is It?" by Jaroslav Pelikan.

Pelikan died in 2006 before I discovered him, but is considered by many to be one of the world's leading scholars in Christian history. He wrote about Christian history extensively, publishing some 30 books. He was fluent in at least 12 different languages, mostly in the languages of the ancient world.

The imperfect quote I made in my earlier post about the oral history of the Jews being dynamic was from this book.

I wish I was able to spend my waking moments reading rather than spending so much time making a living. But alas, such is the results of decision making I have done.

Thanks for coming along. I've heard from two of you. Glad to have you along.

Adventure Beginnings

Only three of you have been selected to participate in this adventure. One of you is bound to me genetically, the other spiritually. Not using the term spiritually in it's normal connotation, but within its broader sense of being bound in soul. The third person is bound to me by cords of attachment that amaze even me, but the cords are bound deep.

I think I may open this to the three of you so you can post blogs of your own. Right now I am researching the feasibility of that.

Until then, this blog will consist of thought process, or in neurological terms, dendrite activity of my own. Not that I believe all dendrite activity is from within one's own cerebral environ, but it will be dendrite activity that will be processing through the neurons in my own environ.

I hope to stretch my own environment in this process as I put into static words what has been processing as dynamic bursts of electron energy. It is claimed by many Christian historians that the early Jews resisted their oral tradition of their peoples story being written down because it would take something that was fluid and dynamic and put it into static words with finite definition. They were opposed to setting the history into print until they were persuaded, read that influenced by money, to do so by the Greeks at Alexandria.

I hope to put down dynamic thought processes in simple enough terms that I can make it understandable yet not loose its force. Two of you being younger by considerable years than myself will understand much of the processes going on in my mind, I just hope to make it all recognizable by me!!

I may need to keep this blog address very secluded, so until I get to a point where I know what direction it will take, I presume you each will keep it to yourselves.

Thanks for coming along. If, indeed, you are still willing to come along. Until I sort out the direction, you might want to refrain from posting comments here, but rather use an email address I created just for this blog: Deleted by the author. It is not a meaningless address plucked out of the air, but one that resonates with me and is a tribute to a person I love dearly.